Drowning Ceremony

Burning Ceremonies around the dark moon are really great, powerful and popular! They help us to shed the old, work through blocks, shadow work and releasing things that hinder our progress. As a Watery person you may not feel very connected with fire and its energy. However there is another way for us watery people!

In Folklore and Mythology Mermaids are not usually full of love and light, they represent the darker aspects of ourselves and are often known for drowning men. So for us watery people sometimes channeling our own inner Mermaid and just drowning the paper in water till it becomes mush and returning it to the earth is just as effective. If you work with Mermaid spirits you can also call on their aid to help banish and drown your sorrows.

How to do this...

• You will need a sacred vessel dedicated to dark moon work, pen and paper, dark moon water
• Take your vessel that is dedicated to nocturnal and banishment work and set it in your work space. You will want to have a different vessel for this type of work to keep the energies different that your full moon. healing, manifesting type work. 
• Pour your dark moon water in the bowl. Dark moon water can be made the same way as full moon water, just during the dark moon cycle
• Charge your water with intent by speaking to it and telling it what you need
• Write what you want to banish on the paper and charge it as well
• Now focus your intent and drown the paper in the water, crumple it up, tear it apart and let it turn into mush
• Take your vessel outside and pour it onto the ground and bury the paper mush, if it is personal work, emotions and healing work with your local land spirits and let them recycle the energy. If you are taking this a step further and working banishing or cursing magic, be very sure to take the water away, dispose of it at a crossroads or in a location away from your home in the west (endings) or north (underworld and death). 
• Walk away and let the magic work

Introducing a 9 month Course in Water Magic

I know many of you have heard me say it over and over, but it is FINALLY HERE! I am so excited to be making this announcement. Starting in March 2015, I will be offering a 9 month course in Water Witchcraft and Magic! This course will run from March 1st until mid November. What does this course offer? More than you can imagine! In 9 months we will pack Sacred Baths, Mythology and Folklore, Sacred Waters, Creating and working with water, meditations and much much more! If you would like to see the entire syllabus then click here

Each course packet includes 

• 9 Individual lessons delivered electronically on the 20th of each month. 
• Full Moon Bath 
• Lavender and Rose Bath  
• Quarts, Blue lace Agate, Rose quarts
• Vial of herbs
•  3 Shells
•  Sea bath and mirror  
• Avalon Tea 
• Black bath salt Seeds

Sea Spell for Prosperity

Here is a little Sea Spell for Prosperity!

Recently a fellow Witch sent me a box which contained many watery things, there were shells, feathers, mermaid's purse(s) and other things. With the arrival of the new mermaid's purse, I decided to use some of my smaller ones for some magic! A Mermaid's purse is shark and/or sting ray egg pouches. They are also called Devil's purses which hints at its powerful nature. You can find them on the shore of almost any beach. They are usually found by the surf mixed in with washed up seaweed. Using the casing that once held a baby string ray or shark that was birthed into the sea for spell work is incredibly powerful. They are also the perfect vessel for magic that involves growth, prosperity, birth, and renewal.

I recently came across the Janarric Runes. Raven Grimassi has written about them. He believes that they are runes used by Witches in an Italian coastal town. So, in a way they are associated with the sea and water witchcraft. I decided to use three of the runes in bind rune fashion. I worked them together until I was happy. The result is below. I had just picked up some new paint and decided to use it on the egg pouch. I also wrote my spell on paper and placed it inside the pouch. Once the paper was safely inside, and the paint dry, I said my incantations and finished my spell. The mermaid's purse speaks of birth, growth renewal, and bounty, these energies along with the fierceness of the animal, the sigil, the spell, and symbolism of the egg pouch. All these combine together with the spoken incantations, makes one power packed charm! Below are some helpful hints so you can make your own.

• Find a hatched mermaid purse on a near by beach. Clean it up and let it dry. 
• Prepare your sigil and intent. Paint or draw it on. 
• Prepare your spell and any incantations you may have.
• Gently roll up the spell
• Find the opening of the pouch and gently push in the rolled up paper containing your spell and/or sigil
• Whisper your incantations and then seal it by anointing it with sea water and leave on the altar until it is finished. 

Also Mermaids purse's and various sigils can be used in protection charms as well. Using the egg pouch to call upon the spirits associated with these powerful animals.

The year of the Octopus

Right before the year ended and the new one began I began to see Octopuses everywhere. I have never really been interested in, or connected to the Octopus. It started with a cup, I was give a tea cup for Christmas from my son. It had an octopus on it! I needed the plate to match and so I got that as well! It was about this time the Octopus came into my life...

I was seeing so many of them that I messaged a good friend also a Sea Witch and asked her what they meant. She also admitted she felt they were stalking her too! It is not surprising we seam to flow like this, us water/sea witches. She said that they are "able to escape terrible situations, able to blend in and adapt to surroundings and yet keep unique identity." This really resonated with me. Over the course of January my favorite artist started producing little octopus pieces out of clay. I am coveting many of them! You can find them here.  I began to feel the presence of the Octopus so much that I started working on a new painting. Today (now a few weeks ago) I finally finished it! Of course I can see all the flaws but overall it turned out great. While I was working on it, I was answering emails and needed to flip to a future date in the calendar. I try not to look ahead in my witches date book simply because it takes the fun out of the content. I like to be surprised each week with something new. However today I had flipped to May, and though I had no intent on looking right before me was an entry on the Octopus. I knew at last, just like the title of this post (which I had actually started early January) this is the year of the Octopus. The writer speaks of them as being incredibly intelligent. I feel this is appropriate to where I am as I am really flexing my brain muscles this semester at University. Almost everything I am doing lately is out of the box and requiring more than usual brain power. They are problem solvers (hmm this seams like me as well!) and are wonderful camouflagers. However this is a trait that is not desirable. I have been feeling like, I just blend in lately. Like my talents are not being noticed, specifically in academia, despite this feeling I know I have to pay my dues so to speak. I have done it before, I just don't want to do it yet again. I need to stop, starting new things. They are graceful, I am dancing again, and part of my style and love for the dance is in the graceful gliding movements. I have been feeling very strange lately, it is not a bad thing. I have been wearing my hair down due to the wonderful weather. It it like legs wrapping all over the place (most times inconveniently) According to the datebook blurb they are the only known survivors of a previously known world. It ended with curiosity, creativity and challenges. three really big C's.

I also did some of my own research to find a little more about the Octopus. It is a fantastic creature, able to escape tight spaces, ink to defend and escape, as well as camouflage. It is able to swiftly navigate the waters, they are flexible and even deadly! (The blue ring octopus)

They even have three hearts! Isn't that a pretty powerful image? Three hearts surrounded by eight arms. I am reminded of the pagan wheel of the year with the 8 arms and three hearts in the center.... This resonates so much. My heart is so big I feel I have more than one. A heart for love of people, a heart for love of self, and a heart for love of the divine. What do your inner octopus hearts represent?

They are fiercely independent learning much from their own experience and very little from their parents. There is so much about them that is so unique and wonderful. However I will end with this...

The octopus when in danger produces a black ink like substance to "shield" them from predators. When you are under attack mundanely and spiritually, or even if you are just overwhelmed with energies that you can not process. Find your inner octopus. Use your minds eye to excrete a black energetic ink to shield you so you may find peace and rest from all that is going on around you. Then use your keen flexibility to escape to a better place.

PHOTO

Glastonbury Blue Bowl

Recently in my practice I have been feeling like there was something missing. Something sacred that during ritual I just needed to have on my altar, dip my fingers into etc. Well after several times of feeling this way, I meditated and found that I needed to work with a sacred bowl. Not a cauldron, which is very important to me as well, but a bowl. Something to told sacred waters. I started to look around. I wanted it to be blue and hand made. About the time I found the bowl (Below) I found out (via internet research) about something called the Glastonbury Blue Bowl. There wasn't much information on this so while I was talking to my mentor Mara Freeman, I asked her to tell me about it. I had never heard about the blue bowl before, but it is no surprise that my soul was craving it. After being at the Chalice well, and standing right next to the building that housed the bowl, (but not being able to enter) I must have picked up on the energy. Perhaps it is more simple than that, the more I align myself with the energies of Avalon, the more the little things come into my life.

In 1908 a French man named Wellesley Tudor Pole became convinced that he needed to move to Glastonbury. Along the way he became convinced that he would find a sacred object there, and would need three maidens to help him. In 1906 an object was uncovered at Bride's mound. It was in fact a blue bowl. Unfortunately it was not the artifact that they had expected. After carbonating and other research they found that the bowl was placed there in 1898 by an English Doctor named Goodchild. He had spent much time in Italy treating tuberculosis years before. He purchased the bowl there and brought it back to the UK with him. After a profound dream where he was told that Jesus had actually carried the bowl, he became convinced that he was in possession of the Holy Grail. He brought the bowl into an antiquities dealer who could neither confirm or deny where it had come from, but suggested that it was very ancient. Since the shop owner who Goodchild had originally bought it from told him that it came from inside of a wall on an old site. He became even more convinced that it was the Holy Grail, and placed the bowl in Bride's mound where he thought it belonged. Though we now know it was not the Holy Grail and that most of the information was incorrect. It now carries the energy of Bride's mound, and Chalice Well (where it now resides inside locked away).

I personally think that the grail if it does exists is NOT a blue bowl, but I do think we can work with the grail and other healing and water energies through working with a sacred vessel. I personally love my chalice but it holds wine, a very important part of ritual. I needed and wanted something more. The energy of the "concept" of a sacred bowl has now been spreading through my own practice, and with out telling my students it is creeping into theirs. I now have one that has come to me with similar information, urging her to start to work with water, by holding it in a bowl. Amazing isn't it? How egregore can be passed from teacher to student and vice versa with out intention. That is why those of us that are called to the Priestess path (or Priest) have to consider everything we do before we do it. (More of that later in another blog) I am happy that this bowl has come to me, and that my students want to work with water more. Maybe it is the sacredness of the water, or the vessel itself. I am not sure, but time will unravel this little mystery.

Water Witches- The Craft of the Canal

This blog has been almost exactly 9 months in the making. I chuckle at this, 9 months is the time of gestation, from conception to birth. It is also a very magical number! If you have been following my blog you know that I was in the UK last May. I wrote several blogs about my experiences, but time got away from me and finishing these blogs were last priority. Then last night as I was mindlessly clicking away at the internet I came across something that literally made me throw my hands in the air and scream "YES!!!!!!"

So lets back up to May 14th 2012. After a little drive through Cheddar gorge (UK) we made our way to Alvechurch. This is where we are supposed to pick up 2 boats. 3 Families on 2 boats, yes this will be an interesting few days. Are you lost? ok let me back up a little bit more. Durring the industrial revolution horse and donkey pulled canal boats and then later steam powered boats were used on a pretty intricate canal system in the UK to transport goods, much like our trucking system or train system. They weaved in and out of the cities through the country side making goods more accessible to people. The people that worked the Canals were a mix of Dutch immigrants, and Gypsies. Soon these people began to live on the canal. Their homes were "narrow boats" much like our single wide trailers, but on the water, and in the 1800s! Now they have become either the way of the modern water gypsy or little vacation homes for crazy tourist much like yours truly. You can pick your boat out, rent it for how ever long you like, and cruise a variety of canal systems. There are pubs and shops along the sides of the canal in many cases. In other cases you have to either park and walk, or let some continue driving, go get groceries and come back. The boats only go about 4 mps, so there is plenty of time. I personally like the little farm shops, that offer fresh sausage, bacon, pies, and fruits.

It was on one of the beautiful quiet days the sun was out, and I was looking at the muddy waters, thinking how beautiful and mysterious the waters were.This is when I had that moment. I knew there was something, something magical, something pulling me. At the time I felt more at home there on the canal than I was in Glastonbury a week before. I didn't understand why, I just kept telling D. that there is just something, something I cant place my finger on. These waters hold magic, I thought it was a muddy watery siren that perhaps was calling me. I could feel the magic. I remember saying to D. that these people are Gypsies, they are water Gypsies, they HAVE to practice magic! They just have to. So then I began to take photos of other boats, proof that there was something magical in these boats. It wasn't until last night that I had that proof!

Do you see the sun and moon on these boats? 

So here is some evidence that the sun and moon are important. There were also symbols like castles, roses, Celtic knot work, and things that resemble the Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs. I even saw a cauldron on the top of one boat. So While we were on the canal I gathered up as much as I could find from the little canal side shops. I looked for books and trinkets. I found a few books that I haven't dug into yet, but they look promising. Also a guide on how to paint the beautiful Castles and Roses. Many people make their lives on the Canal's. There was a very fun Welsh water Gypsy that had been carving mushrooms out of wood and were for sale. (see photo at the bottom) So I had taken my experiences with me, and that was that.........

Now we arrive back to yesterday. I was perusing the internet, nothing special, I was longing for water, its time for me to take a dip in mother nature’s waters. (The bath can only hold me for so long. Looks like next week is a trip to Cali or possibly another watery spot.) I found an article on the web Called Water Witches. I was happy to find it, thought it would be about Water Witchery, but it wasn't quite what I expected! It was so much more, it was all about the ways of the Canal, and how these people were called Water Witches. Because of copy write laws, I can’t post the article but you can visit it 

***t has recently been brought to my attention since I have posted this link. The website has been updated to include questionable and discriminatory information. When the link was originally posted in 2013 it was a bare-bones website that contained mostly text. The information on that single page may have been plagiarized as well. I have removed the link as to not share or promote it. It has been almost a decade since I visited that page. While my love for Canal boats continues I have focused my research on other areas of Celtic and Brythonic Folklore.***

One thing about the article that it mentions is the "Wheel" If you look at the photo below you can see it here. I am thinking that it is much like your 6 pointed star, (As above so below) but if anyone else has information on what this means PLEASE share it with me. So here I am 9 months later, I have finally confirmed that my intuition was right. For my Empath friends and students, sometimes it takes this long or longer to confirm your feelings, so stay strong because most likely you are right! I Belong to these waters, and one day when I have won the lottery I will be buying one of these boats and living on them. Yes these waters are dirty, and not fit to even touch, but there is something magical about them, they hold mystery, magic and NOW I know they hold the secrets of the Occult...........

Want to go on  your own adventure? Visit this link http://www.alvechurch.com/